Sumir Pawar | Khawaaish / 2018

man with gay umbrella

by Douglas Messerli

 

Sumir Pawar (screenwriter and director) Khawaaish / 2018 [7.5 minutes]

 

Indian director Sumit Pawar’s 2018 film Khawaaish begins with a sort of silent declaration. A young man, evidently locked in an either parentally or maritally controlled household—made up evidently by the two children sitting near him on the floor—ties his shoes and takes up his gay  “rainbow” umbrella determined to go out in Mumbai to discover a more compatible world. By bus and rail he travels to the famed Mumbai harbor, looking out over the waters as it begins to rain.

     He puts up his LGBTQ rainbow umbrella to protect him from the rain, but just as suddenly closes it, allowing himself to grow miserably wet, half enjoying the encounter with nature, but also suggesting his attitude toward himself, an unprotected lonely man staring off into space with no specific vision ahead but the rolling waves.

     Suddenly turning his head, he glimpses a handsome man sitting nearby also allowing himself to get wet. He joins the man, sitting next to him, his umbrella now rolled up. The man turns toward him and openly smiles.

      From that moment on the film shifts as the two, introducing themselves, decide to share a soda or some other such drink. They (Sajith Acharya and Abdul Salam Girkar) obviously have made a date, for we soon see them walking together in the bright sun, the one putting his arm around the other. At another moment with the beautiful skyline of Mumbai behind them, we see one of them waiting for the other in what is obviously a second date.

     Soon after, again looking out over the harbor, one of them pulls away, takes out a wedding band from his pocket, bows down, and asks the other to marry him.

     They enter the second man’s apartment, lit with fanciful lights and candles, almost like the rooms were themselves a shrine. They lay down on his bed and cuddle. Everything seems so very pleasant.

     In the next scene, however, the two men are sitting on the bench where this story begin, the second not necessary even aware of the presence of the other. He soon stands and walks off, leaving the original boy with the umbrella behind.

     Obviously the 7-and-a-half-minute film is a pure fantasy, the wishful thinking of a lonely gay Mumbai man who, attracted to the other, spends a few idol moments to imagine a life that seems out of his reach.

      Pawar’s work is well-filmed, the scenes quite evocative and the two actors, despite the fact that they are given no lines, appear to be quite charming. But what are we to make of this? To me, alas, it seems to represent simply a waste of time. We never get any deep insight into either of these figures, so we have no way to identify with their feelings; and what feelings are in evidence come mostly from the imagination of the first man, who seems almost enervated even before the film begins.

      I realize, particularly given India’s familial binds that finding another gay man, particularly given the slightly older age of these two middle class citizens, is extraordinarily difficult. Even though our original figure is obviously “out,” evidenced by his umbrella, to be found in a gay bar by an acquaintance might bring shame upon his family, and even more so if he might be the father of the children we spot on the floor next to him in the very first scene. Perhaps dreaming of what life might be or might have been is the only alternative our “hero” has available.

      But why doesn’t Pawar tell us that story, of how he has come to be in that position, instead of cooking up something that reveals nothing but the wishful thinking of his character? Perhaps we might, at least, come to feel some real empathy with the lonely boy. As it is, his daydream is simply that, a dream that provides us with very few clues, other than his desire for a gay relationship, of how it relates to his real being.

      As anyone who has read several of my essays might tell you, I am not at all committed to realist narrative. But neither am I committed to empty pipe dreams that do not even allow me enough credence to allow me feel emotion for the characters. As Pawar’s film ends, it makes clear that its truth lies in its single first image: a man with a closed umbrella staring out over Mumbai bay, intentionally allowing himself to be soaked. It’s an evocative photograph with a subtly poetic message. But it is no movie.

      Perhaps if our figure had kept his umbrella up, protecting himself from the raindrops, he might have attracted someone else to join him in an attempt to keep out of the rain who might even had something to say that could have evolved into a true conversation. It might have been the start of something far more interesting than the fairytale world our director has come up with. But then my scenario is just another fantasy as well. Perhaps we need to go back to that original room to explain who are the two children sitting of the floor as he ties his shoes to go out. That, for me, is where Pawar’s film stopped, at the very moment it had just begun. The rest is little more than a TV ad for the LGBTQ promotional piece set against some lovely tourist snapshots. I’ll pass. 

 

Los Angeles, June 7, 2021

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June 2021).